North Vision Song Contest 18
|return = |withdraw = |vote = Each country awarded 12, 10, 8-1 points to their 10 favorite songs |null = |winner = |pre = 17 |nex = 19 }} North Vision Song Contest 18, often referred to as NVSC 18 will be the 18th edition of the North Vision Song Contest. It will be held in Brussels, Belgium after Selah Sue won the seventeenth edition with her song "Fear Nothing". It was the first time that Belgium hosted the contest. VRT chose Forest National to serve as the host venue for the edition while An Lemmens and Maureen Louys were selected as the presenters. Location : For further information see Brussels Brussels, officially the Brussels-Capital Region, is a region of Belgium comprising 19 municipalities, including the City of Brussels which is the capital of Belgium, the French Community of Belgium, and the Flemish Community. The region has a population of 1.2 million and a metropolitan area with a population of over 1.8 million, the largest in Belgium. Since the end of the Second World War, Brussels has been a major centre for international politics and has become the polyglot home of numerous international organisations, politicians, diplomats and civil servants. Brussels is the de facto capital (or one of three capitals including Luxembourg and Strasbourg) of the European Union as it hosts a number of principal EU institutions. The secretariat of the Benelux and the headquarters of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) are also located in Brussels. Historically a Dutch-speaking city, it has seen a major shift to French from the late 19th century onwards. Today the majority language is French, and the Brussels-Capital Region is an officially bilingual enclave within the Flemish Region. All road signs, street names, and many advertisements and services are shown in both languages. Brussels is increasingly becoming multilingual with increasing numbers of migrants, expatriates and minority groups speaking their own languages. Bidding phase }} One day after their victory, Belgium announced that there would be a bidding phase for the selection of the host city. The bidding phase kicked off on 28 January 2016 with two cities applying to be the host of the edition: Hasselt applied with the Ethias Arena with a capacity of 21,000 while Antwerp submitted the Lotto Arena with a capacity of 8,000. On 30 January 2016, it was announced that two more venues joined the bidding phase. The first was the Forest National located in the capital city, Brussels which can hold up to 8,000 people. The other venue was the Sportpaleis with a capacity of 23,001, making it the second venue from Antwerp to join the bidding phase. The host city was revealed to be Brussels along with the theme presentation on 31 January 2016. Key }} Host venue Format Semi-final allocation draw The draw that determined the semi-final allocation was held on 6 February 2016 at the Le Châtelain hotel in Brussels. As the pre-qualification round would start later than the draw, the spot for the two PQR qualifiers were drawn first. The big 6 countries were first drawn to determine in which semi-final each would country vote. The rest of the thirty-eight countries were divided into six pots, based on their geographical place. Each time a country was drawn from the pot, its semi-final and half of the semi-final was determined. The six pots were the following: Participating countries Countries in the first semi-final Countries voting in the first semi-final Countries in the second semi-final Countries voting in the second semi-final}} Fifty-two countries participated in the edition. Five countries returned to the contest: Albania, Czech Republic, Israel, Luxembourg and Montenegro returned to the contest after their one-edition absences. Egypt also made their debut appearance in this edition. Four countries, however, announced their withdrawal from the contest. France and the Netherlands cited the change of the Head of Delegation as the reason of their withdrawal. Both Bulgaria and Monaco originally confirmed their participation in the contest but later withdrew from the edition, the first due to strife within the broadcaster and the latter due to missing the songs deadline. Returning artists Arilena returns to represent Albania after her participation in the ninth edition. Maria Elena Kyriakou returns to the competition after also competing in the ninth edition. Meanwhile, Lora returns to represent Romania after singing for them six editions earlier. British singer Leona Lewis will be singing at NVSC for the third time, after previously competing for Ireland in the third edition and the United Kingdom in the fifteenth edition. German singer Madeline Juno returns to the contest after having represented Portugal in the sixth edition. After representing Finland as part of PMMP, Vesala returned to represent her country as a solo singer. Results Pre-qualification round :Main article: Pre-Qualification Round 9 Five countries participated in the ninth pre-qualification round. Belarus and Ukraine qualifed to the semi-finals, while Croatia, Latvia and Morocco were eliminated. Semi-final 1 Denmark, Poland and Turkey will also vote in this semi-final. Semi-final 2 Belgium, Slovakia and Slovenia will also vote in this semi-final. Finalists Other countries : Further information: List of countries in the North Vision Song Contest Countries that are active members of the North Broadcasting Union (NBU) are also eligible to participate in the North Vision Song Contest. As in every edition, an invitation to all the members have been sent in order to confirm whether they will participate or not. Among the active NBU members, four countries announced their withdrawal from the contest. * : Despite their initial confirmation, on January 29th, BNT announced that Bulgaria will not be taking part in the upcoming edition due to obtaining their worst result in NVSC history in NVSC 17. Many Bulgarian musicians withdrew from the planned national selection and the broadcaster was dealing with internal strife. The broadcaster had no comment about a future return. * : It was confirmed that the country withdrew due to undergoing big internal changes. The country is expected to return in the nineteenth edition led by a new head of delegation. * : TMC had originally confirmed the country's participation in the pre-qualification round. However, the country was forced to withdraw after they missed out the deadline for the songs. * : The country was forced to withdraw its participation due to sending an entry breaking the basic rules of the contest. * : Nessma confirmed that they have no interest in returning to the contest. External links * Forum Category:Editions